I celebrated my perfume business paper anniversary on 17th August, 2023. As a start up brand in a very competitive environment. What I did was pushing out my brand to gain visibility. Applying for awards nominations even when I know my chance of winning is not certain.
About three months after I started my business, I saw a flier asking for brand promotion award in my faculty (called College in my university) I applied for it though I didn’t start with a good energy because I it was just a random post as I have put in entry for things like that in line of academics which I wouldn’t hear any updates about them again. I gave this a try and gradually , it’s looking like It true.
We were about 18 brand owners that applied and the contest was online based where the first three brands with the highest votes and comment will be awarded.
In the contest was people doing crypto, people doing fashion designing but I was the only one into personal care products.
We all started to ask for people to vote and comment on our post on Twitter. The first two days I couldn’t get as much votes as my competitors into crypto. I started pending the whole thing and I decided to play the game.
I suddenly stopped requesting for votes and I still have two days left before the deadline. At this stage, most competitors with high votes were relaxed because the rest of us were with fewer votes.
Few hours to the deadline, I took up the task, send a message to 10 of my closest friend requesting for 5 votes from each of them, guess what, my friends delivered… I was so happy because I was above my competitors already. I started this game at 9pm in the night, three hours to the deadline. This time, my competitors were not online, you know the feeling of having competitors with fewer votes made them relax, just like the race of Tortoise and Hare, haha. I don’t you if we all remember the story.
Image is mine
Immediately I got a vote ahead of the person with the highest votes, I got relaxed because we only have few minutes to 12am, the deadline.
Funnily enough, the guy selling crypto came in stronger too at that time. And his votes was increasing too, my guy no sleep o, haha. I was puzzled. I never saw that coming. So what do I do..
I have stressed all my already for votes who else do I turn to? I checked my status icon and. See few people online. I went to their DM asking them to vote for me, to my greatest surprised these strangers came through for me. I never expected it. While some people insulted me for barging into their DMs. Some people even went to cast me on their status for disturbing their peace. I didn’t let that get to me, instead I appreciated the strangers that helped with it. So I was able to reach a larger vote at exactly 12pm before my competitors.
Image is mine
It was very challenging but I had to do it for my brand visibility. I could vividly say this earned my brand a great visibility in my college after three months of starting it up. I felt encouraged by this and I have been trying to stand tall since then.
To attain a your desired level of growth in your business, you need to make your brand visible. Push it in people’s face all time, they would never for once forget about what you do.